In the past, several attempts have been made to provide a method of quickly interchanging various body configurations on a single standard truck chassis. As is well known the majority of the cost of a truck vehicle lies in the heavy duty truck chassis which includes tires, cab, engine, transmission, and drive train for propelling the vehicle.
Most trucks when they are purchased include only a single body originally mounted on the chassis and capable of performing usually only a single function. This arrangement greatly restricts the utility of the vehicle and limits it solely to the capability provided by the selected body. Thus, a truck chassis having a dump body is limited solely to the carrying of bulk materials and the dumping of these materials at the receiving site. In a similar manner, an enclosed truck body is solely capable of transporting cargo from one point to another. By the same token an enclosed tank body greatly limits that vehicle to the hauling of liquids with no other utility available.
It has been well known in the past that greater efficiencies can be obtained with a corresponding decrease in overall cost if a truck chassis can be used for different types of utility functions. This is to say that if various types of truck bodies can be quickly and easily interchanged on a single vehicle chassis the usefulness of the vehicle can be greatly expanded with a corresponding decrease in overall cost expenditures. In addition, the cost for maintenance of the vehicle fleet can be reduced due to the fact that the bodies can be removed from the chassis and repaired or maintained while the chassis continues to perform other functions.
Although the desirability of being able to interchange bodies on a single truck chassis has been well known in the past, no one has been able to provide a suitable apparatus for actually permitting the quick changing of the bodies and yet provide a completely secure and safe coupling arrangement. Many of the systems which have been devised have been expensive and complicated and have utilizied various guide rails and pivoting arrangements with the addition of hydraulic clamps to rigidly secure the body to the chassis. As can be readily seen, this is a rather costly way of performing this process especially if a hydraulic power unit is not already available on the truck chassis.
Even on smaller vehicles such as campers where the body is installed and removed quite often various arrangements have been attempted to secure the body to the chassis of the vehicle. These methods have included the use of bolts or turnbuckles and cables to secure the units. The present invention is intended to eliminate all of these complex arrangements which have been suggested in the past and provide an apparatus which is extremely simple to use and yet extremely rugged and safe for the attachment of the body to the truck chassis. The present apparatus is also intended to allow the body to be quickly removed in a matter of minutes and the installation of a replacement body in an equal amount of time. In addition, the present invention can also allow the same truck chassis to be used as a tractor by the installation of a fifth-wheel assembly for use with various types of semi-trailers. This same quick-coupling arrangement also allows the truck chassis to be used with self-contained power units to perform other useful functions such as a backhoe digging or well drilling operations. Thus, as can be easily seen, the present invention will permit the usefulness of a single truck chassis to be greatly increased and made universal.